our dancing days
by paradises
Summary: immortality, my darlings. / or, the story of how kristen gregory fell out of love and various other things —summer exchange fic for rachel!


**a/n: **Okay, Rachel, because you're kinda the person who got me addicted to Pretty Little Liars, I got this idea —the comparison thing. I haven't gotten past Season 1, but you're right; Spencer and Toby already are so good together. Also, the Doctor Who reference (the Silence) will _probably_ throw you off. The whole idea's a little strange, but hopefully, you'll enjoy this, :) I deleted a lot, so it's short now. Though, the idea play-out/formatting is completely messed-up; the end's the worst part.

**dedication: **to rachel (keep calm and sparkle)  
**prompts: **"Nothing is ever what it seems," tears of joy, Daisy by Marc Jacobs, curling irons

**our dancing days  
**kristen/the fisher brothers

**.**

Kristen Gregory likes awards. Awards of any sort —recognitional state of the art inventions, essay or research paper state astronomical ones, presidential acknowledgements, city newspaper medals, anything.

It makes sense that her role model is Spencer Hastings.

Of course, Kristen is aware that there are many problems of having your role model be a fictional character, a messed-up fictional character nonetheless, but she is adamant upon her decision from the moment she skimmed over the first novel of the series.

And, in her realm, Kristen finds no flaws in Spencer, therefore she is the perfect role model —she is hard-working and spends every moment reaching for the Ivy's, wins national awards (even if it does mean stealing), and has the _perfect _boyfriend. Smart, overachieving, and extremely wealthy are the ways to describe Spencer Hastings, and by some means, eventually Kristen Gregory.

She starts off as this sort of qualified good girl —the ones that guys tend to avoid, girls ridicule, and the Ivy's are on their ironed knees, begging for. Nevertheless, her conquest to perfection begins at the age of twelve, and it seems as though it will never end. After a while, her nature has changed, and Kristen can't find it in herself to want anything less than perfect.

.

Spencer Hastings deserves the best.

Which is exactly why Kristen Gregory deserves the best, and cannot, not know, not ever afford to take anything that is not rightfully hers, but then again, Spencer Hastings had Alex Santiago —Kristen finds Cameron Fisher. He is close to what Alex would have been like, if he had not been just a fictional character, an actor only portraying a role of the perfect boyfriend, the perfect person for her.

Kristen's life goes splendid, in fact, just like the in the episodes, yet this is not one of those episodes of calamity; _let's save that for later,_ says A. Cameron is not poor, nonetheless, he is hardworking and loves her dearly, and after a few years, Kristen can't remember her life before she had met Cameron; truthfully, the details of meeting him in the first place were a little hazy.

Nonetheless, Kristen does not have a normal life with those rich parents who wish to sign her up for a therapist after something goes wrong; instead, she has a father who one might call a dissident, and was in jail for lese majesty —what one calls for speaking their beliefs, the truth, really, about the President. Her mother spends the majority of her days in the asylum, counting the feathers of harrowed crows, braiding them together so that they stay close to her, and in a way, Kristen understands. She's had a life where there's been rarely anyone ever there to support her after the age of seventeen, but nobody really cares for her anymore.

It's just one of those days where the girls have dolled themselves up, and the guys end up looking sloppy in comparison, and all of a sudden, they're all giggling —loud raucous laughter on one side, quiet nervous types, the sound of a lion roaring, and there are splashes from the water as the nine, _noeight, _jump into the water, and Kristen's left on the sidelines.

It's just like usual, if she really thinks about. Her feet are dangling off the diving board, her hairstyle undone as she frantically removes all the pins, her eyes tearing up at the hairspray, or it could be the text message that she had just seen on her screen. _Status of Charles Gregory: executed. _

"Hey, Kristen?" Someone slides into the seat next to her, and she immediately makes a move to wipe her eyes dry before she sees who it is, the boyfriend of her best friend, Cameron Fisher. "Is something wrong?"

Kristen looks up, getting lost a little in his green eye. "—what? Oh, no, nothing. Um, it was just some of the hairspray that Mass had sprayed. Apparently three hours of curling irons wasn't enough," she jokes, immediately turning off her cellphone, in case of worse news being sent, but then again, what could be worse than the fact that she was basically an orphan? Nothing. "I'm fine, Cam, really. Where's Claire?"

Claire and Cam were always together; like Westchester's golden couple, but not quite, since neither of them were quite as popular or quite as backstabbing as the other. Cam shrugs, though, "She decided we needed to take a break, to see other people."

"_Claire?_ Claire said that?" Kristen can't help but snort, and worry if something's gone wrong, because it's just not like Claire Stacy Lyons to give up her boyfriend of three years to "see other people". Barely any guys even like Claire in the first place; personally, she had thought it was a miracle for Claire to be the first one in the pretty committee to actually have an "official" boyfriend. "So, who are you going to take to the Fall Ball?"

Cam shrugs, for the second time. "I don't really know. What about you? Aren't you going with Kemp?"

"Kemp?" Kristen breaks into a fit of laughter, sounding more like a hyena than a Gregory girl. "—god, no. The only reason why I went out with Kemp, and kissed him in the first godforsaken place was on a dare, from Nina Callas, all the way back in seventh grade. Anyway, we broke up about two weeks ago." She feels strange for a moment, then brings up the question, because it's not like it'll really mean anything (at least, not for now.) "Do you want to go together?"

He sighs, obviously not really into the idea, before a wide grin spills across his face. "It's a date, Gregory."

**.**

The Fisher brothers remind her from their childhood.

Childhood memories are often stored away in the back of people's minds, but for Cameron Fisher, he remembered and cherished every second, and every moment, all those breaths of fresh air into his lungs. Stolen moments of pleasure, tears of joy, but perhaps a few of those tears must have been from sadness —more than a little. Kristen does not remember what happiness is anymore, perhaps not true happiness but those fake smiles don't seem to make up for a childhood in wonderland, instead pacing on the outskirts of rage and serenity. She is walking through the wide doors now, an elegant smile on her face as she glides through those doors, smile immediately disappearing once she remembers.

_Dearie, you're in high school, not wonderland._

Nonetheless, Kristen remains a dreamer —how stupid she is to believe. Everybody knows, especially her, that's the thing about hope: it breeds eternal misery.

**.**

If Cameron Fisher is her prince charming, then Harris Fisher is the devil incarnate.

It's Valentine's Day, and Cameron is probably the only person in Westchester who found the excuse to abstain from going to the party —promptly after a battle with Kristen, he had broken up with her three hours previously, via CD mix, the newest addition to the list of _harshest ways to break up. _The soundtrack of Cee-Lo's _Forget You _penetrated through her earlobes as she swayed to the music, caught in the middle of the flying streamers, rosy pink kisses, and grinding slow dancing couples.

_How much more disgusting could it get?_ Kristen's curled ringlets were up and held with a gauzy, vibrantly colored snood which flashed like diamonds beneath the halls' chandeliers, each individually set up by professionals, called in from across the country for the night. In the midst of the night, she finds herself soon seated by the bar, requested another glass of water, like the abstainer she is, until she hears a giggle from the seat next to her.

Looking through the reflection of the stainless steel juicer, Kristen people watches a kooky looking Layne, who donned a crazy floral printed silk dress with polka dotted leggings. On her feet, she wore one shoe with leopard print and the other zebra striped; nevertheless, Layne's face was made up perfectly as always, but she used more vibrant colors than she would typically, completing the look with deep fuschia colored lipstick.

She's never felt more disgusted for herself, because for some reason, Kristen feels jealous; there's no reason for this to happen. She barely even know's Harris; he was always just her ex-boyfriend's older brother, dark and mysterious behind those closed doors with the loud punk rock music beating down the floors, shattering eardrums and glasses alike; the only thing she remembers is that Leesh used to have a thing for him, but that was back in seventh grade, and this was tenth. It was sort of sad, she thought, ordering another glass of water. Everything _had _changed. She hadn't meant for this to happen, but one minute, Layne had angrily left the room, walking up the staircases, and the next she was kissing Harris Fisher, Harris _fucking _Fisher.

So, she did what any other girl would do in that type of situation. Kristen tried to kiss him again, but he just shoved her off, muttering, a "you're not my type" as he managed to stumble in a drunk manner out of the hall; nobody really noticed his disapperance, and moments later, Kristen herself forgot, pulled into the crowd again.

**.**

Kristen Gregory, with all her pulchritudinous, cuspate features that occasionally premiere upon sophisticated magazines, willowy body, and brown, catlike eyes that pierce intrepidly into another pair yet those lips are of the most importance, lips like blood, in all her fine Westchurian glory, hurls onto Harris Fisher's vermillion WELCOME carpet, her lithe self promptly falling down onto the floor, bare arms splayed above her head. **  
**

He shuts the door, and she's not surprised. The next morning, she gets his phone number from the yellow newspaper, flipping through pages furiously; Massie doesn't even question her when Kristen refuses to participate on the shopping trip, even though she's Kristen, the girl who does _everything (_and she means everything) her alpha ever said to do.

**.**

******kristen [2:13]**: um, hi harris. this is kristen; cam might have mentioned me?  
**harris [2:27]**: yeah. he did. he doesn't want to talk to you but i'll tell him you called  
**kristen [3:59]**: _nononono _don't do that  
**kristen [4:03]**: *inserts picture of the silence*  
**harris [5:32]**: i'm sorry, what were we talking about?  
**kristen [12:44]**: argh...your tree? yes! your tree. it's looking a little leafier than usual?  
**harris [1:17]**: yes, we're the kind of friends who care about each others foliage

**.**

_Nothing is ever as it seems_, Kristen reminds herself, but then again, everything is a little too predictable.

She turns seventeen on April 19th and her mother is boring and dull and _ohso_uninteresting —she gets the usual set of updated encyclopedias from the parents, a bottle of whisky from the distant cousins, but there's this bright yellow gift bag in the bottom of it all, but her parents tell her to not open it until everybody, and they mean everybody, has left. Kristen scoffs, knowing that the Gregory's don't do well with imperfection, or _ugly._

Kristen supposes that the gift is from _him, _but doesn't even voice her belief because if her mother, who had returned from the asylum but was still as loony as ever, even knew that she had moved on from Cameron, there was no way that she would be allowed to return to school. "I can't tell her, Harris," she tells him on the phone, whispering as her mother walks out the door, then leans against the couch, propping her legs upon the coffee table as she picks at her brittle nails. "She'd kill me."

"I wouldn't let her," Harris simply replies. Kristen stays silent for that moment, as a tear of joy leaks out of her right eye; finally, somebody who actually cares for her. "I'd probably kill you first," he continues.

"What the hell, Fisher? I-I...mean, what the cake, Harris?" she corrects herself.

Harris lets out a hoarse laugh. "Turns out that princess makes some slip ups too?"

"Shut up, Fisher." She hangs up the phone, smiling. Kristen spends the next fourteen hours researching that girl, whose name turns out to be sweet little Layne Abeley, and for a moment, she feels almost bad that she's going to be trying to ruin this girl's life over the remaining two years of high school. "She's cute," her mother remarks, leaning over her head, watching the computer intently as she dries a towel.

"She's trying to steal someone," Kristen replies, fixing a stray piece of hair back into a previously curled ponytail, now turned slick after an all-out-there round of tennis matches.

Her mother only takes a moment to finish, "She's hateful." Kristen resists the urge to laugh; her friends all say that they would love to have a carefree mother like hers, and for a moment, her friends are _almost _right, but not exactly all the way right. Her life is still pretty messed up —after all, she spends the majority of her days pining after two unattainable boys, who ended up being her close family friends, who end up being _brothers._

Argh. Of course, if she was going through her conscience, then Cam would almost be the right option but all of a sudden doing the right thing isn't as important as doing what feels better. Kristen gets to know Harris, and suddenly it's not that he's Prince Charming (more like the devil), but it's in a good way; just not how she had imagined the good way being, though.

.

It's Massie's graduation party (_the hottest one of the year, and the only one that could ever matter, bitches_), and Kristen's bored out of her freaking mind. God, seriously; there were only so many times that she count the number of creases on her newest white dress or the number of wood planks in the Block's kitchen (seventeen), or even the number of bricks on the outside courtyard (four thousand, five hundred and nineteen.

He is contravening silence. His name is Harris, and they met a long time back but she's never really seen him than more than a brilliant scheme of grays and blacks and whites; she describes him differently, now, a certain lilt to her voice as she dances across the orchard, because she is in love, jumping high, falling low. To her, it's the most beautiful thing in the world with hollywood cerises, chartreuse green, zaffre blue, jonquil yellow —before she met him, life was simple, but it was colorless. Being with him has every danger, every risk of its own, but Kristen's so in love that she thinks that she knows everything, and she's willing to sacrifice it all. Or so she thought.

She stands outside, the wind brushing through her hair as it creates more of a knotted, messy look rather than the casual Californian girl's common windswept hairstyle. "Are you trying to look like a Hollister model, Kris?"

Kristen rolls her eyes, of course it would be him to say something like that; then again, she didn't really mind. After all, there was nothing better to do than bicker back and forth with Harris; she was just so damn bored. "Hey, Fisher." She slides over on the iron bench, disgustedly throwing off a piece of gum that stuck to the back of her dress. "What are you doing here?"

"I got invited," he replies, flashing an invite in front of her face, and plopping down, throwing the gift into the pile. "What were you fighting about?"

She looks up at him as though she doesn't know what he's even talking about, but he's known her for far too short a period of time for it all to be explained; even if she wanted to explain it, Kristen couldn't. "I have to go, Fisher," she only says, and walks away, knowing that everything had been in vain.

He's not really Toby, though, and she's not really Spencer Hastings, so it couldn't have worked it out in the first place.

.

She's not that same sweet girl that she had been all these years ago (if she could even spend a moment to remember those years, in between moments of _drunksoberdrunksober_). There's not a moment of her life that she can remember when she wasn't up on those tabletops, singing to the end of time itself, and then falling into a comforted bed frame, banging her head upon the broken shards of china vases. Tears of joy leak through the coldness, of her china doll shards.

It is that night, that one night, when is finally able to sleep. Sometime in between the hours, an arm is laid gently across her stomach, holding her in an embrace, yet, nonetheless, she responds effortlessly, aiming a defensive sidekick into the person's face, who winces in displeasure, and moves away from her —the rest of her sleep is fitful, yet is sleep nonetheless. For some reason or the other, Kristen's high —for, like, the _first _freaking time. The rest of August goes by in a blur, and by the time school resumes, it's back to poster girl for studious by day and party girl by night.

The foul dust floated in her dreams, temporarily closing out her interest in short-winded happiness, usually followed by condecsending remarks from that sister of hers, who sleeps on the tattered couch in the basement, repeating successions of smoke-drink-smoke-drink, and after a while, Kristen wonders if she should follow suit.

There is nobody to stop her from falling, anymore. She stands on the balcony, the metal cold in her hands and the sunset coming up from the east, the scent of her daisy perfume permeating through the iron air, a strange scent but one real nonetheless; the wind is cold in her ears, rushing past as busybodies hassle through the streets, and Kristen soon realizes that what is a life, blended in into a fast world?

"I'm going to jump now," she murmurs, dangling her legs off the edge of the balcony, holding onto the iron bars as she performs smooth gymnastics through the cold-cut air, the humidity setting in as the day moves on, her hands turning humid as she returns to her room, dresses in her oldest angel costume because all she's ever wanted to do is die a beautiful death; at least dying young, that would bring some satisfaction to a beautiful coffin.

_Immortality, my darlings._

**fin.**


End file.
